“Under the Dome,” summer’s biggest TV hit, has been renewed for a second season by CBS.

The sci-fi thriller, based on a novel by Stephen King about small-town residents trapped under a impenetrable bubble, will return for another 13-episode run next summer and King will pen the first episode.

“We’re excited to tell more stories about the mystery of the dome and the secrets in Chester’s Mill,” CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler said in a statement Monday.

“Dome” premiered to 13.5 million total viewers and its audience has been holding fairly steady ever since. Still, one reporter here at the TV critic press tour, wondered how long the series can last. After all, the residents can’t go on living under a transparent dome forever, can they?

But CBS CEO Les Moonves shrugged off that assumption.

“Why can’t we be under the dome for long period of time? This is television,” he said playfully.

Other highlights from the CBS executive session:

— Addressing the racial and homophobic slurs on “Big Brother,” Moonves said he finds some of the behavior on this summer’s edition of the show “absolutely appalling.”

But he said the show is living up to its premise as a “social experiment” and that some of that behavior “unfortunately reflects” what is going on in the country.

— Unlike NBC, which is making changes in late night, CBS has no plans to replace David Letterman, Moonves said, even though his ratings often lag behind NBC’s Jay Leno.

“Unlike the other guys, we don’t like drama at 11:30,” he said. “I consider David Letterman the best guy in late night … Other than Johnny Carson, he’s probably the best that ever was.”

— Soap fans can relax. “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful” are not in danger of cancellation.

“They’re doing well, they’re profitable,” Moonves said. “We believe those two soaps will be on for a long, long time. We don’t believe the form is dead.”

— CBS announced one change to its season premiere schedule. No. 1-rated comedy, “The Bing Bang Theory,” will now launch with back-to-back original episodes on Sept. 26 (8-9 p.m.), pushing the debut of the new sitcom, “The Millers,” back to Oct. 3 (8 p.m.).

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